The first British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839 ended three years later in disaster.

At least they saw the light three years into their campaign, they didn't have wait 10 years plus to experiment with a better way and in the meantime continue to sacrifice our best people, our financial wealth, and our international credibility.

Both the Nato campaign and the 1979 invasion were initially attempts to impose "ideology foreign to the Afghan people", whose aims were quickly dropped when they ran into difficulty.

Nato, like the Soviets, has been unable to "establish control over the country's borders and the insurgents' safe havens", or "protect the rural population"....
"The [Soviet] 40th Army was unable to decisively defeat the Mujahideen while facing no existential threat itself, a situation that precisely echoes [the Nato coalition's] predicament"

Quote:

The paper, Lessons From the Soviet Transition in Afghanistan, was prepared for the MOD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), to provoke internal debate and challenge current military thinking.